March 14, 2006
That's Entertainment!

   First order of business: Some quick inking tips requested by the readers (all three of them!):

   I've received emails over the past year or so, asking what tech pens I prefer. I like Koh-i-Noor rapidographs, with the refillable reservoir. The Rotring rapidographs have replacable thin cartidges with ink already in them. There's no discernable improvement either way, just personal preference. I just think the Rotring cartidges are wasteful, not to mention, a pain to find at a store. Sure, the Koh-i-Noors (what a friggin' annoying name to type) require cleaning periodically, but I just set aside a couple hours once a month or two (depending on when too many clog up to improvise with different sizes) to do so. As for rapidograph ink, for the life of me, I can't tell the difference between Rapidograph Universal ink or Ultradraw ink-they both work good enough for me.

   On avoiding pencil-smudging while inking: Some pencillers draw very light, and if your hand rubs against the page, you may cause the pencil images to fade. You tape over most of the page with blank paper, except the panel you wish to start on. I first stick the tape to my forearms to take the tackiness down a notch (and old art-school trick) because you don't want ripped panel borders when you lift the tape off.

   In my case, however, exposing only one panel serves a deeper, psychological purpose for me.

   If I have a page with outrageous amounts of detail in every panel, my eye gets a little overwhelmed with the entire imagery of the page and I get indecisive about where to start inking, especially first thing in the morning. There's always either 1) a couple easy panels to warm up on or 2) a really cool panel that I'm bursting at the seams to ink. If I section off one panel at a time, I won't be distracted by the other panels. It helps me concentrate, or else I'd be picking random sections of the panels without the feeling of accomplishment. I recall reading about Wally Wood inking a ten-page story, where he just felt like doing the figures throughout all ten pages (99% of artists will agree that figures are the most fun to work on). Then he described the hell he went through having to ink nothing but cars and buildings for days (apparently this was one of the rare times he didn't have an assistant).

   Even if I start a page with an insanely-detailed panel which'll takes a lot longer than it should, at least I know that panel is done. From there I build my confidence up. You'd think that after ten years, confidence wouldn't be an issue, but the one constant in comic book freelancing is "You're only as good as your last job." I can tell editors: "I inked Greg Land on Nightwing", but that was years ago. What matters now is how well I inked Doug Mahnke on Team Zero #5 for Wildstorm last week. Period.

   Yet another purpose this serves is the avoidance of losing the reader's eye in the page's sea of detail. Each panel, with that tiny black frame is an indivdual illustration that serves the greater good: storytelling. My first DC work was Justice League Amercia #103, inking Chuck Wojkiewicz, who can fill up a page as much as anybody. At the time, I would ink the whole page as one image, and it became visual noise. I didn't have this problem with Dave Johnson on Superpatriot, because Dave idiot-proofed it by drawing in the contour lines' thickness and balanced a superdetailed panel with a simple panel. Without the training wheels Dave provided, I had to learn all over again. Only towards the end of my first JLA run (#108, 109) did I start learning to separate images on my own, but I wasn't hitting home runs yet. The lesson: Don't count on your penciller to do all the thinking for you. If there's uncertainty in a panel, make it clearer.

   On an unrelated note, when you have urgent deadlines, it's important to keep your energy level high, which means, besides food and caffeine, you have to entertain yourself. That's part of the reason I have Sirius Satellite Radio. Music, comedy, and talk for every mood. Also, I have my computer just a few feet from me, so I can pop in a movie. I try to limit my worktime movies to ones that don't require me to look over every ten seconds. One of my highest recommendations is 1991's GlenGarry Glen Ross, with the all-star cast of Jack Lemon, Alan Alda, Ed Harris, Pachino, and some new guy named Kevin Spacey. This was originally a play adapted for the screen, so the dialogue, delivered brilliantly, carries the film. Actually, you'll find most Pachino films work almost as well as radio theater. Also, DVD sets of TV shows like Sex and The City, The Simpsons and The Honeymooners all have great dialogue.

   Audio books are another great way to pass the time while you're cranking out pages late at night. For a while, I even joined a mail-order audio book club, but you only want to hear them once, then they began to take up space. Murder mysteries are fun, such as Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series "A is for Alibi" "B is for Burglar", etc. She's up to the S's now, so I don't know if we'll get "AA is for Agitated Aphids" or if Grafton will just wrap it up. But the female lead character, Kinsey Milhone is a very likable P.I. who occasionally skirts the law on fact-finding missions (what self-respecting P.I doesn't?). I don't know why this hasn't been picked up for a series of TV movies.

   Then there are movies that drive me nuts if I overhear them from the living room when Karen is innocently watching TV. The Harry Potter movies are irritating to overhear, particularly when they're playing Quidditch-moments of quiet, then peals and squeals of various and sundry shrieks! That's one of the few times my open door policy ends, and I shut my office door to block out the sound.

   A few paragraphs ago, I had mentioned the late great Wally Wood. If you're not familiar with his body of work, you're the poorer for it. Thankfully, in 2003, TwoMorrows published Against The Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood by Bhob Stewart, still in print. It's chock full of photos, illustrations and recollections from those who knew him best. But I must caution you: Read it in small doses, as it can get depressing. There's a full-page photo of him at 51, looking every bit like 90. It's a window into the soul of a true artist, with all the peaks and valleys of a genius' career on display.

   Wally Wood had very few clones (artistically-influenced, not literal Spidey-Clones), because his gift for double-lighting and brush control was so amazingly rare. Wayne Howard was one of those clones, whose work I saw while thumbing through a recent purchase of some old Charlton anthology comics I acquired at Megacon. Surely he must've been one of Woody's assistants at one time. Whatever happened to him?

   Wally Wood was one of a dying breed: An artist who was acclaimed as much for his inking as his creative draftsmanship.

   BTW, two new pieces of art have been added to the commission gallery!
 
 
All characters & their images are property of their respective copyright holders. All original content (c) Drew Geraci. Please request permission before reprinting or reposting elsewhere.